Future Timeline Question spoilers st'09 and Countdown

[Zman1]

Ok the star trek future timeline will it include the comic http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Star_Trek:_Countdown and follow from there treating the 2009 movie as an alternate universe, or will the comic be treated as au and the supernova not happen or not just destroy Romulus? I mean its coming up right? If the Borg invasion happen(s)ed in 2381 and the nova in the comic in 2387 thats not too long from now...

 

[JD]

The Hobus Supernova and destruction of Romulus happened in the Prime Universe in the movie, so they have to happen in the books once they read that point.

 

[Zman1]

The Hobus Supernova and destruction of Romulus happened in the Prime Universe in the movie, so they have to happen in the books once they read that point.

Ok... but how will it be treated is what I'm asking? Will the timeline branch there or will they branch it off before that possibly by saving Romulus? Its not set in stone Star Trek sometimes contradicts itself and so canon isn't always so. If you don't believe me just try counting Voyagers shuttles.

 

[JD]

The only branching off related to the supernova is the Abramsverse back in the 2250s. I know the STO novel does say that the novelverse is a separate timeline, but any branching that happened there would have happened before the novels started since the contradictions start coming fairly early in the timeline.

 

[Therin of Andor]

but how will it be treated is what I'm asking?

The authors haven't pitched any of those tales yet, as far as we know, nor can we really predict what CBS Consumer Products will approve or not approve. Only that the authors are expected to follow canonical events. Each pitch is considered on a case-by-case basis and the books don't have to agree with each other.

We probably won't know what possibilities were considered until books start coming out that cover the period of Romulus' destruction. Unlike previous editors, the current staff at Pocket are seemingly not interacting with readers in online forums, nor addressing fans at conventions.

 

[rfmcdpei]

The Hobus Supernova and destruction of Romulus happened in the Prime Universe in the movie, so they have to happen in the books once they read that point.

Ok... but how will it be treated is what I'm asking? Will the timeline branch there or will they branch it off before that possibly by saving Romulus? Its not set in stone Star Trek sometimes contradicts itself and so canon isn't always so. If you don't believe me just try counting Voyagers shuttles.

At this stage, I don't think anyone knows.

Plot developments which might lead to Countdown as depicted in the comics have occurred--Picard's new interest in pursuing non-Starfleet careers, Worf's interest in command, the moderation of politics in the Romulan Star Empire--but the writers have stated that the comics won't be followed. Romulus is still slated for destruction come 2387, last I heard.

 

[Christopher]

Ok... but how will it be treated is what I'm asking? Will the timeline branch there or will they branch it off before that possibly by saving Romulus? Its not set in stone Star Trek sometimes contradicts itself and so canon isn't always so. If you don't believe me just try counting Voyagers shuttles.

The shuttle thing again? Come on, they showed us in "Extreme Risk" how they built new shuttles. They had replicators and an engineering crew on board, so it shouldn't be remotely surprising that they had the ability to replace the shuttles they lost. There is no continuity error there and never has been.

As for the rest, timelines are just an in-story conceit. The real-world fact is, tie-ins have to follow the precedent of the canon. That's why they're called tie-ins; they have to remain tied to what's onscreen. So any tie-ins will have to acknowledge the supernova and the destruction of Romulus, although the novels don't necessarily have to fill in the blanks the same way that Countdown did.

And yes, new canon sometimes disregards earlier canon, but usually just when it's either something minor and easily forgotten (like whether Deanna had ever kissed Riker with a beard or whether Data had used contractions) or when it's something widely reviled (like the bizarre antimatter physics of "The Alternative Factor," the tiny galaxy of ST V, or the entirety of "Threshold"). The 2009 movie is the most financially successful Trek movie since TMP and the most popular and critically acclaimed one ever (going by Rotten Tomatoes and IMDb rankings). And the destruction of Romulus is one of the biggest, most unforgettable things that happened in it. I don't think it's realistic to expect it to be ignored or contradicted.

And even so, only new canon has the prerogative to contradict earlier canon. Tie-ins don't. So the books cannot unilaterally decide to pretend the supernova never happened.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Ok... but how will it be treated is what I'm asking? Will the timeline branch there or will they branch it off before that possibly by saving Romulus? Its not set in stone Star Trek sometimes contradicts itself and so canon isn't always so. If you don't believe me just try counting Voyagers shuttles.

The timelines branched in 2233, the day the Narada appeared in the past and James Kirk was born. From the point-of-view of everyone in 2387, Romulus was destroyed, and Spock and Nero's ships were sucked into the black hole. The novels aren't very likely to rewrite or undo events from Trek's most succussful movie!

Although several hints have been dropped (like Picard being offered a job as Ambassador, Spock becoming a legal resident of Romulus and Countdown-style holographic consoles being used aboard the USS Titan in Synthesis) we don't know if the novels will actually lead to Countdown's events, or tell their own version of the supernova catastrophe.

If they'll be allowed to, that is. After the sudden cancellation of the four post-Star Trek (2009) novels in summer 2010, Pocket may want to stay away from the movie's concepts lest Bad Robot pull the plug again. It may be that the books skip to 2388 and mention Romulus and the supernova in passing only. It would be a huge shame.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Pocket may want to stay away from the movie's concepts lest Bad Robot pull the plug again. It may be that the books skip to 2388 and mention Romulus and the supernova in passing only. It would be a huge shame.

More likely, they'll tread water, if they have to, until JJ's trilogy is completed. No need for restrictions then. (It's not the first time the tie-ins have been asked to back off for a period. The Star Trek Office asked DC Comics to leave alone then-current seasons of TNG at one point.)

There's still plenty of time, and a novel series as rich as ST can progress as quickly or as slowly as they need to, even backpedaling if they like. TOS novels have always jumped around the timeline, pitching stories between "The Cage" and "Generations" at the authors' whims.

 

[Hando]

Does that mean the supernova event has to happen? The authors cannot play the alternative timeline card there? The astro-political situation is/will be different after all (or may be not and the Iconians and Remans and who knows what will do it nevertheless)?
Or is a gambit a la The Good That Men Do possible and all was an fantasy by a senile Spock?

 

[F. King Daniel]

Does that mean the supernova event has to happen?

Yes.

The authors cannot play the alternative timeline card there?

No.

The astro-political situation is/will be different after all (or may be not and the Iconians and Remans and who knows what will do it nevertheless)?

The novels will very probably have a different version of the cause to that in Star Trek Online. For starters, the novelvese Iconians are totally different to the STO ones.

Or is a gambit a la The Good That Men Do possible and all was an fantasy by a senile Spock?

STXI was the most successful Star Trek movie ever. They're not going to pretend it didn't happen. That would be bad buisness.

 

[Hando]

Thank you for the answers KingDaniel.

The novels will very probably have a different version of the cause to that in Star Trek Online. For starters, the novelvese Iconians are totally different to the STO ones.

Are there any modern Iconians in the novelverse? The last I remember are the technologically-devolved descendants in Devils Heart.
So the STO Iconians can be a mad offshoot.
Along similar lines of Progenitors, some of who died out, some became Preservers, some froze themselves, some evolved....

STXI was the most successful Star Trek movie ever. They're not going to pretend it didn't happen. That would be bad buisness.

We ARE stuck with it. I have to brush up on the Romulus destruction back-story in the movie, for I cannot remember there being said much. So, for all we (alright, I) know Spock did blow up Romulus.

 

[Wally]

Are there any modern Iconians in the novelverse? The last I remember are the technologically-devolved descendants in Devils Heart.
So the STO Iconians can be a mad offshoot.
Along similar lines of Progenitors, some of who died out, some became Preservers, some froze themselves, some evolved....

I seem to recall the true Iconians showing up in Gateways: What Lay Beyond. And they were very different from how STO has portrayed them thus far.

 

[rfmcdpei]

Thank you for the answers KingDaniel.

The novels will very probably have a different version of the cause to that in Star Trek Online. For starters, the novelvese Iconians are totally different to the STO ones.

Are there any modern Iconians in the novelverse? The last I remember are the technologically-devolved descendants in Devils Heart.
So the STO Iconians can be a mad offshoot.
Along similar lines of Progenitors, some of who died out, some became Preservers, some froze themselves, some evolved....

Star Trek canon does establish that Iconian is the root language of the much more contemporary languages of Dynassia (a class-M world with two populations, the Iconian descendants and the indigenous population), DiWahn (another class-M world), and Ikkabar (a generally class-M world with an eccentric orbit that eventually killed off its inhabitants). (Memory Alpha also points out that the script of the Zibalian language looks much like that of ancient Iconian, suggesting some diffusion of script there.)

The information about the Iconians we're given in the TV series, and in The Devil's Heart, does not exclude the possibility of Iconian descendants elsewhere. There could be other Iconian descendant languages known to the 24th century that Data excluded from consideration because they'd drifted too far for to be useful possible reconstruction. The Iconians' gateway network reached as far as the Gamma Quadrant, so imagining other isolated populations beyond the borders of the Federation is imaginable.

This page

http://www.oocities.org/athens/agora/8088/Exophylogeny.html

describing the evolution of different planetary populations of an ancient starfaring empire into a collection of more-or-less distantly related species might be interesting.

It's only been a quarter-million years since Iconia fell, so natural biological divergence wouldn't be so extreme as described above, but still.

 

[Mike Winters]

Thank you for the answers KingDaniel.

The novels will very probably have a different version of the cause to that in Star Trek Online. For starters, the novelvese Iconians are totally different to the STO ones.

Are there any modern Iconians in the novelverse? The last I remember are the technologically-devolved descendants in Devils Heart.
So the STO Iconians can be a mad offshoot.
Along similar lines of Progenitors, some of who died out, some became Preservers, some froze themselves, some evolved....

STXI was the most successful Star Trek movie ever. They're not going to pretend it didn't happen. That would be bad buisness.

We ARE stuck with it. I have to brush up on the Romulus destruction back-story in the movie, for I cannot remember there being said much. So, for all we (alright, I) know Spock did blow up Romulus.

Nothing to know on the backstory from the movie. Star went supernova and the shock wave was extremely violent. Spock tried to save Romulus, but by the time he got there, he was too late. Anything else comes from tie in literature (ie Couuntdown or Star Trek online novel.).

Mike